S&N Pays $1.5B For Sports Medicine Specialist ArthroCare

NEW YORK (The Deal) -- The U.K.'s Smith & Nephew hopes to get a leg up in the fast-growing sports medicine sector through the $1.5 billion acquisition of Nasdaq-listed ArthroCare (ARTC) which counts One Equity Partners LLC as its largest shareholder.

The London-based buyer said Monday it agreed to offer $48.25 a share in cash for Austin, Texas-based ArthroCare. The offer price is price is 6.3% above the target's closing share price Friday on Nasdaq, and the $1.5 billion enterprise value, which is net of roughly $200 million of cash, represents a multiple of 15.7 times adjusted 2012 Ebitda, according to Smith & Nephew.

Smith & Nephew shares added 1.4% in London Monday morning to trade at 888 pence, for a total market value of about 2.92 billion ($4.77 billion). Smith and Nephew is looking to the acquisition to bolster its offerings in noninvasive sports medicine.

"This is a great deal that rebalances Smith & Nephew in areas of higher growth," said Smith & Nephew CEO Olivier Bohuon on a conference call.

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S&N Pays $1.5B For Sports Medicine Specialist ArthroCare

Chemical stem cell signature predicts treatment response for acute myeloid leukemia

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

3-Feb-2014

Contact: Kim Newman sciencenews@einstein.yu.edu 718-430-3101 Albert Einstein College of Medicine

February 3, 2014 (Bronx, NY) Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and Montefiore Medical Center have found a chemical "signature" in blood-forming stem cells that predicts whether patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) will respond to chemotherapy.

The findings are based on data from nearly 700 AML patients. If validated in clinical trials, the signature would help physicians better identify which AML patients would benefit from chemotherapy and which patients have a prognosis so grave that they may be candidates for more aggressive treatments such as bone-marrow transplantation. The paper was published today in the online edition of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Sparing Patients from Debilitating Side Effects

According to the American Cancer Society, AML accounts for nearly one-third of all new leukemia cases each year. In 2013, more than 10,000 patients died of AML.

"AML is a disease in which fewer than 30 percent of patients are cured," said co-senior author Ulrich Steidl, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of cell biology and of medicine and the Diane and Arthur B. Belfer Faculty Scholar in Cancer Research at Einstein and associate chair for translational research in oncology at Montefiore. "Ideally, we would like to increase that cure rate. But in the meantime, it would help if we could identify who won't benefit from standard treatment, so we can spare them the debilitating effects of chemotherapy and get them into clinical trials for experimental therapies that might be more effective."

Analyzing Methylation Patterns

The Einstein study focused on so-called epigenetic "marks" chemical changes in DNA that turn genes on or off. The researchers focused on one common epigenetic process known as methylation, in which methyl (CH3) groups attach in various patterns to the genes of human cells. Researchers have known that aberrations in the methylation of hematopoietic, or blood-forming, stem cells (HSCs) can prevent them from differentiating into mature blood cells, leading to AML.

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Chemical stem cell signature predicts treatment response for acute myeloid leukemia

Medicine claim in Telford drink drive case

A Telford man claimed cough medicine was the reason he was over the drink-drive limit.

Andrew Hutton John Mitchell, of Hill Road, Overdale, told Telford Magistrates Court he had drunk two cans of lager, but had also taken cough medicine for an illness.

Mitchell, 38, was spotted by police on Oakworth Close in Hadley at 1am on January 20 when they saw the green Ford Focus he was driving veering across the road.

He was found to have 62 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath the legal limit is 35.

He admitted driving a motor vehicle while over the legal alcohol limit.

Mrs Kate Price, prosecuting, told the court yesterday Mitchell was immediately pulled over by officers and was unsteady on his feet and his speech was slurred.

She said: He told officers I know I will be over, Ive had a stressful night.

Mitchell, who represented himself in court, said: I know what I did was wrong, I only had two cans but I was poorly so I had been drinking cough medicine.

Mitchell was disqualified from driving for 36 months, fined 200 and ordered to pay prosecution costs of 85 as well as a victim surcharge of 20.

He said: Sorry is all I can say.

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Medicine claim in Telford drink drive case

Is Radiation Therapy a Substitute for Chemotherapy in Colon Cancer Treatment? – Video


Is Radiation Therapy a Substitute for Chemotherapy in Colon Cancer Treatment?
Dr. Murty received his Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Medicine and Dentistry - New Jersey Medical school. He completed his internship in in...

By: Colon Cancer Answers

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Is Radiation Therapy a Substitute for Chemotherapy in Colon Cancer Treatment? - Video

Medical tourists seeking treatment overseas without sufficient information and advice

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

3-Feb-2014

Contact: Caron Lett caron.lett@york.ac.uk 44-019-043-22029 University of York

A team of researchers has found that British people travelling abroad for medical treatment are often unaware of the potential health and financial consequences they could face.

The researchers say this can, in some cases, have catastrophic effects for individual patients.

At least 63,000 UK residents travel abroad for medical treatment each year. However, the study led by the University of York, and involving the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Royal Holloway University, the University of Birmingham and Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, concludes that many people are embarking on medical tourism without understanding the risks involved.

These include a lack of redress in many countries should things go wrong, and the costs of non-emergency care at home to rectify poor outcomes of treatments received overseas. Many people, the researchers say, are unaware that under current NHS eligibility and commissioning rules, individuals may be personally liable for these costs.

The research was funded by the National Institute for Health Research Health Services and Delivery Research (NIHR HS&DR) Programme. The study looked at the effects on the NHS of British nationals going abroad for services including dentistry, bariatric (weight-loss) surgery, fertility services and cosmetic surgery.

Principal Investigator Dr Neil Lunt, from the University of York's Department of Social Policy and Social Work, said: "We found that many people are embarking on medical tourism with insufficient information and advice, with consequences ranging from troublesome to catastrophic.

"A sample of patients revealed that while some patients had minor or no problems following treatment abroad, others faced severe health problems which in some cases were exacerbated by an inability to ensure continuity of care or obtain patient records to address patients' needs."

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Medical tourists seeking treatment overseas without sufficient information and advice

UNLV med school: Only time will tell

In the debate over a proposed public medical school in Las Vegas, some have questioned whether donors would support it. I am writing as the former director of Nevada giving for the Lincy Foundation. The foundation made several major grants to health care in Nevada, including to Nevada Heath Centers, St. Rose Hospitals, Nathan Adelson Hospice and Nevada Cancer Institute. Our gifts to NCI alone totaled about $60 million.

Donors, businesses and our community need a stand-alone medical school at UNLV. This is not a new conversation, and we have a dog in this fight.

Most of this funding occurred in the past 10 years, including a $5 million gift in 2008 to University of Nevada Health Sciences Foundation for a clinical simulation center. That gift proved crucial for the UNR medical school, also known as UNSOM, the University of Nevada School of Medicine. Things were not looking good in 2009, and the accreditation review of the school by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education issued a warning of probation, finding that Educational space has long been deficient on the Las Vegas UNSOM campus and that there was a chronic invisibility of UNSOM in the Las Vegas community.

In its response, UNSOM highlighted its only new investment in years, which happened to be the Lincy Foundation gift.

Now, fast forward to a more current conversation: The Lincy Institute at UNLV (supported by a gift that the foundation made for $14 million) continues this investment by producing health policy research in Nevada. The Lincy Institute commissioned the recent study by Tripp Umbach, which found that by 2030, an independent medical school at UNLV could produce more than $1 billion in economic impact and add 8,000 jobs in the region. So regardless of our need for a medical school in the south, simply based on economics and return on investment, it could be a good idea.

Over the past month, the only retort to this data is that the south wont support an independent medical school. Medical school Dean Thomas Schwenk said Las Vegas philanthropists are confused by the north-south divisions and are thus not contributing gifts to a Southern Nevada medical school.

As a major donor to health care in Nevada, the Lincy Foundation is the opposite of confused. We know precisely what UNR is selling, and we are not buying a second UNR medical school in Las Vegas. People are not interested in a second UNR campus of what Tripp Umbach found to be the least economically beneficial allopathic medical school in America.

Philanthropy is often determined by geography. For instance, several major gifts to the UNR medical school by the Pennington and Redfield foundations have required that their funds stay in Northern Nevada. The Lincy Foundation could have required a similar constraint on its gift to the clinical simulation center. Rather, to benefit all Nevadans, our gift allowed the Reno-based medical school use of the facility.

I believe Schwenk would find a pool of donors in Las Vegas if he were asking for gifts for a UNLV medical school and not simply a branch of the UNR medical school.

Either way, I think Southern Nevadans should consider waiting for someone who understands us before we open our checkbooks. Only time will tell.

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UNLV med school: Only time will tell

Tour for Diversity in Medicines 5th Bus Tour Crosses the Southwest to Mentor the Next Generation of Minority Medical …

Albuquerque, N.M. (PRWEB) February 03, 2014

The Tour for Diversity in Medicine, a volunteer initiative developed by two young physicians, will travel across the Southwest from February 3 7, 2014 during its fifth bus Tour to help minority students pursue careers in medicine and dentistry. Reaching five universities and colleges in just five days, 15 doctors, dentists and medical school students from across the country will provide free, full-day workshops to local college students. For the first time the Tour also will offer a new combined curriculum highlighting college readiness for high school and college students in Albuquerque, N.M. In addition, the Tour will provide courses customized for the needs of community college students when it meets with them for the first time in Phoenix.

Sponsored in part by the U.S. Army, the Tour for Diversity in Medicine aims to help diversify the health care profession by giving minority students the advice and tools they will need to pursue medical careers. Although African Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans comprise more than 26 percent of the U.S. population, they represent only six percent of practicing physicians and five percent of dentists, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). However, research shows that patients who receive care from doctors of the same background are more satisfied and engaged in their care.

Were working community-by-community to inspire the next generation of healthcare professionals and make a positive impact on the current state of diversity in the medical profession, said Alden Landry, M.D., co-founder of the Tour for Diversity in Medicine and an emergency department physician at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. Our new curriculum for high school and community college students will help even more students better understand how they can overcome perceived barriers of pursuing a medical career. Through in-person meetings and ongoing mentorship after our Tours, were making a tangible difference in the lives of future doctors across the country.

The Tour for Diversity in Medicine will travel more than 1,700 miles to visit the following schools:

The Tour for Diversity in Medicine is working toward a significant goal: ensuring the growing rate of diversity in the U.S. population is reflected among our health care providers, so that patients can receive the best care possible, said Mr. Randy Lescault, Chief of Advertising and Public Affairs for the U.S. Army Medical Recruiting Brigade. As a continuing sponsor, were proud to support this impactful grassroots initiative that is taking real steps to help underrepresented minority students navigate their path to medical school. It gives us an opportunity to meet young, motivated students across the country who have a desire to serve their fellow man, and allows for a forum to share information regarding careers in Army Medicine and our Health Professions Scholarship Program."

At each stop, the Tour offers day-long interactive sessions with mentors who review the medical school application process, admissions tests, financial aid, interviewing skills and provide an overview of health disparities. Students also have a chance to meet with mentors one-on-one to gain personal insights and understanding of how to build successful careers.

Additional support for the Tour comes from AAMC, American Dental Education Association and the American Association of Colleges of Podiatric Medicine. The events are free for students, with registration available at tour4diversity.org.

Weve reached more than 1,800 students in 17 states and Washington, D.C. over the past two years, seeing first-hand the positive impact mentorship from doctors who come from similar backgrounds can have on a students life, said Kameron Matthews, M.D., J.D., co-founder of the Tour for Diversity in Medicine and Chief Medical Officer of the Mile Square Health Center at the University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System in Chicago. Were ready to get back on the road and continue to spark interest in health care careers among more students by providing them with the access to resources and information that they need to build fulfilling careers in medicine.

In addition to in-person mentoring and live events, The Tour for Diversity in Medicine keeps students engaged at tour4diversity.org with the Voices of Diversity blog, interactive webinars and educational videos. Follow the Tour for Diversity in Medicine at Facebook.com/tourfordiversity and Twitter @Tour4Diversity.

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Tour for Diversity in Medicines 5th Bus Tour Crosses the Southwest to Mentor the Next Generation of Minority Medical ...